


Insanity

by Halest0rm3



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Batshit crazy, Blood, Blood and Gore, Diamond is the one quadrant you can never replace, Equitty wait for me, F/F, F/M, Gen, I have some unfinished business to take care of down here, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Insanity, Meowrail, Revenge, Terrorstuck, Torture, Violence, You only get one meowrail for life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-15
Updated: 2014-08-01
Packaged: 2018-01-24 21:12:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1617227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Halest0rm3/pseuds/Halest0rm3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>iNSaNiTY feels like floating on the air<br/>What happens when <i>filthy treachorous despicable</i> humans kill Equius right in front of Nepeta?<br/>PSYCHoPaTHY floating free without a care<br/>What happens when Jade is forced to shoot the person she loves most?<br/>*a-ac says furwe-e-ell to herself*<br/>What happens when two broken souls meet?<br/>NOT A HAPPY FIC, i repeat NOT A HAPPY FIC PEOPLE DIE, LIKE A LOT OF PEOPLE, LOTS OF BLOOD AND KILLING AND REVENGE AND ALL THAT FUN STUFF</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. iNsAnItY

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfic was inspired by and based on this song:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfsCjTe-q2o  
> So you should totes listen to this while reading it if possible  
> Thanks for reading!!!

"Insaanniittyyy, like we're floating on the air"

The soldiers could hear her but they couldn't see her. The forest was so thick that the sunlight was blocked by the canopy. If it wasn't the scorching heat and the humidity it could have been night from how dark it was.

"Psyychoopathyyy floooaaatting free without a care"

Her voice was that of a girl's, but there was an edge to it that made the hair on the captains neck raise up in fear. Damn trolls! This isn't what he had signed up for. As captain of the city guard he was supposed to protect the city from bandits and armies, not crazy psychopaths. And not crazy psychopath trolls that could rip your throat out faster than any human. She had already killed dozens of citizens, and every soldier that had been sent after her had never come back. Bad enough that she was a troll, she just had to live in the Fangir Forest! Trolls at least he knew could die. It wasn't easy to kill them, they could move faster than the eyes could track, their flesh was thick enough that gunshots barely made a dent from a distance, they could take hits that would kill a man instantly and still keep moving and killing. But he knew that if he kept hacking at them, if he spilled enough of their demon blood then they would go back to the hell they came from. In this forest however there lived ghosts and he had grown hearing tales about the shades of Fangir Forest. They would take over a poor chap’s body and use it to walk on the earth. They would go back to his family, disguised as a person, wait until everyone fell asleep and then slit everyone’s throat. A fate worse than death, even at the hands of a damn troll demon spawn.

A branch cracks to the left of him and he turns bringing his gun up towards the dark opening between two trees that look too twisted and jagged to even be alive. There's nothing but silence as the captain and the four men behind him hold their breaths listening for any sound. Any sound at all.

A chuckle rings out in the air for far too long before fading again into silence. He feels his hands shaking frantically as he looks fruitlessly for the source of the sound. A bead of sweat drips down his forehead and falls on one of the leaves scattered throughout the forest floor. He can feel his heartbeat over the ringing in his ears.

"A-ac says hello-o-o to-o the puny-y-y li-little huummmaaannss"  
There's a hint of a purr when she says humans, like the purr of a cat. He remembers how his cat used to trap mice and that thought suddenly gets really unpleasant. The voice starts laughing manically, a laugh that is much too quite, much too high, much too wrong. It’s soft enough that even though he strains his voice he can't tell where it comes from. It’s worse than nails on the chalkboard, he gets the urge to just shut his ears as hard as he can to try and shut the laugh out. The laughing that won't stop. His eyes flick nervously between trees, why does it have to be so dark?

The laughing doesn't stop. It just doesn't stop and it sounds crazy. It sounds _wrong_ why wont she stop, why wont IT stop because there’s no way a girl, even a troll girl could make such an unnatural sound. It doesn't stop, why wont it fucking stop, it needs to fucking stop NOW!!

His finger closes over the trigger of his gun and he pumps the forest full of bullets and lead, not even caring where she is, where she's hiding because the sound of a gun firing is something different than the sound of that laughter, that unnatural laughter. His soldiers follow his lead and wildly shoot into the trees. Smoke rises from the four guns into the sky above. He grips the trigger hard enough to cut his finger and doesn't let it go not even when the click of his gun tells him that he's out of ammo and four other clicks ring into the air as each of his soldiers also run out of ammo. The bitter smell of gunpowder intoxicates him and the smoke hurts his eyes. He tosses his gun down to the ground and pulls out the pistol at his belt and holds it tightly in front of him with two hands.

The voice rings out from somewhere in the forest "Havent we met befur?"

One of his soldiers, an angry newbie called Gale whose parents had both died from a troll attack, dug his hands into fists in anger.  
"IF WE HAD MET I WOULD HAVE ALREADY KILLED YOU TROLL BITCH"

Silence lasts for a minute, maybe two and the captain starts to wonder whether she maybe left. Perhaps he had hit her with a bullet and she was running off to tend to her wounds. He counted 100 heartbeats under his breath, then another 100, after which he put his gun down slowly and heaved a sigh of relief.

"A-ac says furwe-e-ell"

Her voice is louder than before or perhaps it simply seems like that after being silent for 200 heartbeats. His pistol goes back up and he almost backs into Gale when he flinches backwards.

"A-ac says furwe-e-ell"She sings, like a nursery rhyme from hell.

"A-ac says furwe-e-ell" The pause between each time is long enough to make him think she'll finally stop, until...

"Furwe-e-ell, furwe-e-ell, furwe-e-e-ell"

Gale snaps "SHOW YOURSELF YOU MONSTER!! COME DOWN AND FIGHT LIKE A MAN"

"To meewwseellff" she sings holding out the word for what seems like eternity until it sounds more of a screech than a song. The dying cry of a harpy would be less scary than this crazy batshit singing.

"To" The soldier next to Gale, a superstitious farmer-turned-soldier named Frank, was visibly shaking. He was shaking from fear, not anger like Gale, and he had dropped his gun and was wiping his palms on his pants.

"Heeeer" Frank grips Gales arm and Gale shoves him off. He falls on the ground and stays there, eyes wide with terror.

"Self" The word was followed with a scraping sound, claws against bark, and Frank lost it. He scrambled up and took off in the direction they had come. His gun and pack he left on the ground as he screamed pleas for mercy from the heavenly gods and tore out of sight of the captain and the remaining men. They stared at each other as his cries grew fainter. From the direction he had run there came the voice again.

"Me-ow can run  
And me-ow can hide  
But AC says that mew must die"

Frank's yells stop suddenly and the captain feels a chill down his spine.

"Me-ow can run  
And me-ow can hide  
But AC says: me-ow must _die_ "

Franks last cry echoes in his companions ears until it's cut off suddenly.

Darin, the soldier next to Gale, was whispering to the captain "Should we maybe leave before she comes back?" All thoughts of killing her were out of his mind. They hadn't even caught a glimpse of her and she had just killed one of their men. Maybe with more men and bigger guns, maybe they could take her. Or they could just burn the whole forest down and send her down to hell that way.

The captain nodded slowly "Lets get out of here. Were leaving!"  
Not even Gale put up a protest.

"Leaving meowlready? But ac was having sooo much fun"

She was back. If he could just see her, then maybe he wouldn’t be so terrified. Hell if he could see her then he could pop a couple bullets in her brain and see if she still talked so cheerfully after that.

"Kanaya?" her voice was quieter now, less screechy and insane, a little sad even like she was holding back tears.

"I have a purresent for you Kanaya. I found mew nice delicious blood. Dont mew want to be strong befur your clown hunt? Come and drink with me befur mew hunts the clown. We can drink blood together, delicious tasty red blood and terezi can join too, and we can hunt as a pack. Come kanaya ill let mew be my meowrail and mew can tell me all mew secrets and we can have a felines jam and make a nice pile of bones to sleep in together and we'll be purrfect quadrantmates and best furriends... We'll be happy...  
You won’t betray me!! Mew won’t kneel in furront of the clown..."

"I nefur thanked you for taking care of Mr. Ampurra Kanaya, he was an absolute disaster on my shipping wall, completely impurrssible to ship. HAHAHA. How did his blood ta-aste? His purple fishy tu-na blood" she was speaking faster and faster, higher and higher with a voice that betrayed the madness behind it. Sometimes her voice would come from the left sometimes from the right. She would giggle uncontrollably as she talked, as if she was saying the funniest thing in the world. The captain knew he should do something, anything, but he couldn't move, not while that voice was still there.

"Here you go Kan-a-ya, dr-drink up!!" A circular object fell from the trees and crashed with a thump into the leaves. One look made the captains stomach wrench in horror. Beside him Gale bent down to puke.

It was Franks severed head.

"Fucking Hell!!" The four of them back away from the bloodied head, Darin tripping over a root on his stumble back and falling on his back, slamming his head against a fallen trunk. The captain rushes towards Darin and lifts his head to check for any damage. No permanent damage but Darin looks dazed and confused. Probably at least one concussion, something he would have to be taken back to town to be treated for.

The captain hears movement behind him and turns around. Shit shit shit shit! He had dropped his pistol on the ground to check on Darin and now it was gone.  
"Did you guys see her?"

Gale and Trey shake their heads. Gale has a knife and his ammo-less gun. Trey has another pistol but he had lost his knife. The Captain has only a switchblade tied to his belt now that his pistol got stolen. Overall it didn't look good.

"Insaanniittyyy, like we're floating on the air" Great she was back to singing again.

A gunshot rings through the air and the three survivors minus Darin leap to cover. But she's not aiming for any of them. She's aiming for Franks head and it splits in two in an explosion of blood and guts. She fires again and again as Trey thinks of his fiancee back home, as the Captain prays to his god, as Gale cusses loudly. The head splits into three pieces, then four, then into a slurry of brain fluid and mud.

"Ac nefur really liked gun sticks. A true hunter looks her prey in the eyes befur ripping it apart with her claws. Only fishy traitors use gun sticks. Fishy traitors and humans. "

The captains pistol falls to the ground next to him. It has four deep gouges in it, looking for all the world as if wolverine had ripped it up. Even if it had any ammo left it probably wouldn't fire.

"Do my little kittens want to hear a bedtime story befur I put them to sleep?"

Gale opened his mouth, probably to say something along the lines of HELL NO TROLL SCUM, but the captain kicked him in the shin befur he could talk and said "tell us the story" to the forest. He figured that if he kept her talking there was more of a chance of her letting herself be seen. And if that happened then it was up to Trey to use his pistol, or maybe he could chuck his switchblade like a throwing knife.

"Mew see it was sefural sweeps ago and there was a group of 12 little trolls and we were the best furriends ever"

Trey was darting his eyes between the different trees, if he could just get her once than they might be able to escape.

"There was karkitty, and GC the furrocious dragon huntress, and fishy little ampurra, and sweet Fekitten, and Tavkitty who was allergic to cats. I nefur apologized for making him sneeze so much."

Trey spotted the flicker of a tail behind some trees and shot twice in rapid succession. She stopped her story and hissed at them. The tail had disappeared and Trey was back to looking around wildly.

"Naughty Naughty little kittens with gun sticks, HAHAHA ill show the naughty little kittens who their mother is ac says giggling manically" there was that sound of claws against bark again but it only lasted for a second. Then it started again from the opposite direction. Gale saw a movement behind Trey and shouted a warning but it was too late. Her claws swept through the air and sliced off Treys arm at the shoulder as if it were nothing more than a ripe tomato, opening a fountain of blood. Gale rushed forward with his knife but she was already gone and she had taken his arm with the pistol still in it.

The captain ripped off his shirt and pressed it against the bleeding stump that jutted out from Treys shoulder. If he didn't stop the bleeding then Trey would die from blood loss.

"The beginning and the end, Doesn't matter anymurr! I can feel my soul shattering. _into. pieces!"_

"Oh i almost furrgot Equius, how could i forget my Equitty. He was the best meowrail efur"

Gale and the captain had managed to stop the bleeding but Trey was going into shock. He was shivering and his eyes were dazed. Ever couple of seconds his body would convulse suddenly and then slowly relax.

"He cheered me up when i furrelt sad, and he would roleplay with me even though he thought it was purrsitively silly!!

"He built me a metal kitty to cheer mew up after Karkitty started flushing with Terezi. I named her Friglish"

Her cackles grew higher and louder, the shrieks of a fallen angel with her wings cut off, the sound of complete and utter madness.

"And then three of our furriends went crrrrrazy"

"iNsAnItY, An illusion that cant end"

"Ac doesn't blame them though.. Being mad is THE MOTHERFUCKING MIRACLE." Her scream rings far too long in the air.

"I can still hear the honks," she hisses

"CaPtIvItY, I can hear the honks again~!" She sings before dropping back to a whisper,

"Ac can honk too now"

"Ac took his horns, all of them, in her cave, just waiting fur him to come and try to take them back"

"Furst Spiderkitty went mad. She only had one arm like mew. She ran Terezi through with her sword," she cackled  
"But GC had the last laugh. She stabbed spiderkitty through the back with her dragon cane when vriska turned away."

"Ru-ule of the mighty hunt-tress,  
Never leave mew prey alive,  
If me-ow leave them not headless,  
Chances are mew wont survive!!"

"Mew one arm is reminding me of her, purrhaps i should stab you too? Ac doesn't have any fancy dragon cane though, just my claws. But purrhaps they will work just as beautifurly?"

She purred again. Trey was losing consciusness, closing his eyes slowly. Darin was still dazed, lying on the ground. The captain was whispering to Trey telling him to relax and that everything was going to be fine. He was lying and he knew it. It was a good thing Trey was already too far gone to hear him. Gale was curled up in a ball on the ground. He was covering his ears with his hands trying desperately, and futilely, to get her voice out of his head.

"Then fishy ampora snappered!!" She cracked up at that.  
"Haha get it??? Because hes a fish and snapper is a fish??? Hehe Fefkitty would have been so purroud of that pun..."

"If she wasn't dead of course"

The silence afterwards was punctuated only by the breath of the four men. "Is it bad that I want her to talk, if only so I know she hasn't decided to kill us?" the captain thought. "Am i finally going crazy?"

"He was a pain to ship, absolutely no flushed partners at aaalll. Ac was pleasantly pleased when kanaya ripped him up with a chainsaw"

She jumped from a tree and landed just outside the little clearing where the four survivors were huddled. Her paws muffled her fall, so much so that if Gale and the Captain had had their eyes closed they wouldn't have heard even the crinkle of a single dead leaf.

Gale pulled out his knife and held it shakily in front of him warning her to stay back. The captain knew he should pull out his switchblade, try and get a lucky stab in her neck and see if that would shut her up, but he was done. He was seriously done. The captain could face human attackers or wild animals. He had charged boars and bears and barbarians more times than he could count. He could face any normal troll, however "normal" those hell spawned demons could be. Hell he would gladly face the bloody ghosts of Fangir Forest right now. At least his death by possession would be quick, not this endless torturous game of cat and mouse. He could not face this troll. The troll who was scarier than a thousand ghosts and made him forgot what it felt like to not be paralyzed by terror.

He looked at the troll who was coming to kill him. She was smaller than any troll he had ever seen, skinnier too. Her eyes were a bright yellow that shone in the darkness, like the eyes of a lynx or werecat. Her face was covered in blood, and her bloodstained tattered green coat had splotches of guts still hanging on. She was munching absentmindedly on a finger like a piece of chewing gum. Only the tip with the fingernail could be seen with her mouth closed over her fangs. He could hear the crack as she bit clean through the bone and then spat the mutilated finger on the grass next to her. Franks wedding band was still attached to the shattered bone. Her horns were shaped like cat ears. Bloody, scarred, ragged panther ears. Her left horn was jagged and misshapen. It looked as if somebody had tried to rip it out of her head and instead ended up breaking it in half. Her necklace was made up of bones, like some cannibalistic god. She smiled an evil smirk and his stomach jumped. Her fangs were completely red, not an inch of white shined through the paint of human blood that covered her mouth.

This was the first glimpse anyone had had of the cat troll, at least anybody that was still alive, the captain thought morbidly.

"Rip. him. up,  
Spill. his. guts,  
Purr purr goes the chainsaw cat!!"

With each word she took a muffled step closer to the two humans and with each word the two humans took an involuntary step back. There was no question of fighting, they could have had machine guns and they still would have been too frightened to do anything more than step back slowly from the demon that was approaching.

"Snap. his. neck,  
Drink. the. blood  
Lick and suck up every drop!!"

Her eyes told the captain what he had already guessed. She hated them. It wasn't hunger that drove her. She was not hunting them like the panther hunts its prey. She hated all the humans. It was not even the thrill of the hunt that made her kill humans, like the human serial killers who get a high from claiming their victims. It wasn't the pleasure of having blood run through her paws and down her body that pushed her. She hated every, single, treatorous, fucking, human and she would never rest, never stop until they were all dead... or she was.

"Feel. My. Claws,"

She extended her claws and showed them off to her captive audience. They were long and shiny and sharp. Above all else sharp.

"In. Your. Mouth."

Three more steps forward, three more steps backwards...

"Food goes down and claws go up  
Food goes down and claws go up,  
Claws grip your puny human brain,  
So pink and tasty, so deliciously juicy"

She raised her head up and laughed. If her laugh before had been creepy, now it was goddamn terrifying. When she laughed the captain could see little driblets of flesh and blood drip out of the side of her mouth creep down her skin. He could see her fangs and behind them too. The mass of flesh that was behind her fangs. What looked like a half chewed up eyeball just floating around.

"Purr. Purr. Goes. The. Chainsaw. Cat!!"

With a jump quicker than his eye could track she flew through the air landing on top of Gale. He screamed in shock and jerked his knife forward but before it could cut into her she dodged it and then disarmed him by biting the blade of the knife and using her teeth to yank it away from him. She spit the knife a couple feet away along with specks of green blood.

"Claws squeeze" She ran one of her claws down the veins in his neck all the way to his chest.

"Brain splats!!" She nicked his chest right above the v in his shirt and licked up the red droplets that squeezed out.

Gale is screaming bloody murder. He's yelling at his captain to help him, to move, to do something, to pull out his switchblade. The captain doesn't move. Doesn't Gale realize its hopeless? Might as well get it over with the captain thinks. He lays down on the ground and closes his eyes. "Im so fucking tired" he thinks as his racing heart slows down.

"CAPTAIN WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING???"

"I ju-just need to rest, i-i'm just so ti-tired" he takes the switchblade from his belt and chucks it, still with his eyes closed, into the distance. Then he lays back down and curls up like a baby ready for bed leaving his neck exposed so she wouldn't have to move him to kill him. One bite to the neck and then he can rest.

"HAHA AC likes this human. He knows what a MOTHERFUCKING MIRACLE dying is"

She crawls off of Gale and creeps closer to the captain.

"Meowntains of bodies,  
Stacked, One. By. One,  
Meowsands of heads,  
But not, one, heart."

She pauses next to Trey, barely conscious Trey who's weakly flailing his remaining three limbs in a futile effort to push himself away. She lifts one of her paws and places it on his chest, Trey freezes. Gale realizes what she's about to do but he can't move a finger to help his friend.

"Meowntains of bodies,  
Stacked, One. By. One,  
Meowsands of heads,  
But not, one, heart."

"Not, one, heart" and then Trey screams as his chest is ripped open, as her hand reaches into him and yanks out her prize. Trey lives long enough to see his heart in her hand and her give his still beating heart a slow lick before he finally closes his eyes.

"Bye sweet fefkitty, go swim away  
Dont worry fefkitty, ill make 'em _pay"_ She says before savagely biting strips of meat away from Treys heart like strips of bacon.

She starts walking again towards the captain who didn't even open his eyes at Trey's scream. She stops before she reaches him and walks up to Darin. The unfocused look in his eyes doesn't change but his fingers do scratch uselessly at the floor, as if he were digging a hole away from here.

"HAHAHA Who remembers Happiness? Who remembers Sorrow? AC DOESN'T DOES SHE???!!!"

"Not, one, single, heart" She takes her time with Darin, digging circles deeper and deeper into his chest with one claw. After what seems like hours of Darin shrieking in pain as his chest is ravaged open she finally leans down and yanks out his heart with her teeth.

His yells subside into moans as his eyes flicker weakly. When she bites down on his heart with her fangs she keeps her mouth open and her head on top of his so that the thick red juicy blood falls on his face. A waterfall of death. She uses her tongue to lap up the pooling blood and then uses the blood to draw a heart on his stomach, below the gaping hole of half exposed organs on his chest.

"Wait fur mew in hell equitty, i have some prey to hunt furst"

"I nefur finished my story did i?" Trey is dead, Darin's moans are softer and softer as his blood paints the ground, the captain moves not a muscle in anticipation of his turn. Gale shakes violently.

"The clown went HONK, he SAW THE LIGHT!!" Her wretched scream drops to a whisper.

"Equitty told me to wait, dear purrociouss Equitty told mew he would come back soon. He lied!! But ac followed him. Thats what meowrails do, protect each other." She traced the curve of the captains face as she talked.

"Equitty knelt befur the clown. Equitty knelt befur the clown. Equitty knelt befur the clown, He knelt. I had to protect him, i had to protect mew meowrail" Shes talking faster and faster betraying the emotion in her voice.

Her claw swipes and three bright red scars flashed on the Captains cheek.

"Purr-ple scars,  
Three. Of. Them,  
Purr-ple scars"

She licked each of the Captains three scars.

"He snapped ac's horn, he ripped ac's tail off with his teeth, but ac won"

“Equius?”  
Her voice changes completely. Before it had been either the whisper or the shout. This was the first time that she sounded halfway sane. She sounded human. She sounded sad, like she was about to cry.

"Oh my god Equius don’t move, Its okay Equius, im here I’ll protect you, just lay still and we'll fix you up, ill get Kanaya to fix you up, Gamzees gone you dont need to worry, he ran away, I made him run away, noones going to hurt you now, your meowrails here, Equius I swear if you die on me I am going to kill you. Yes I know that sounds silly!! Just lay still, Im going to pick you up okay, no don’t talk Equius shut up, I don’t care if youre sorry, I don’t care, I don’t care, you can be sorry when you’re better, okay? Just don’t move I’ll get you out of here.”

She was facing the captain, talking in his ear, but she wasn’t talking to the captain. His eyes weren’t the ones she saw, and his scars weren’t the ones she was remembering.

She dug her claws into the Captain and a single tear rolled down her cheek, red from the caked blood on her face.

“Mew aren’t Equius” Her insane voice is back. Her crazy whisper.

“And mew can’t run away like the clown… mew are just a puny human” She kicks him over onto his back and digs her knees into his stomach.

“Maybe I should rip off mew bulge and hang it outside my cave? Doesn’t that sound purrsitively delightfurl??? Or I could eat you up, toe by toe, finger by finger, slow enough that mew don't bleed to death fur a very long time” The Captains eyes are shut tight and his fists are gripped so tightly that little droplets of blood spill from the indents of his nails.

“Open mew eyes puny human. I said OPEN YOUR EYES” The captain shakes his head frantically. He doesn’t want to see anymore, why won’t she just hurry up and kill him?

“Filthy humans cut off his eyelids. His strong eyelids so he could see what they did to him. So he could see what they did to me” Her voice is sad again.

“Nepeta don’t l00k please,  
But she can’t close her eyes,  
Nepeta please l00k away  
But she can’t turn her head  
Let me hold my Moirail she said,  
But the chains were too strong,  
Let me touch him she cried  
It’s with him I belong” She might have had a good singing voice once, but now she just sounds haunted. The cry of someone who has spent years chasing ghosts.

“He couldn't close his eyes, and I wouldn't fur him, why should mew?”

“I had to see efurything”

“If mew were a troll we could be furriends. Wouldn’t mew like that?” She’s back to insane happy.

“Im going to make mew a troll!!” She decided “Lets start by taking off those human eyelids”

"Dont move don't move,  
Kitten dear  
Don't mew know that mommy's here?

Don't look don't look  
Kitten dear  
Come let go of all your fear"

Screams punctuated the night, that and the sound of tearing flesh. 

"Can't move can't move,  
Mommy dear  
Dull paws sharp claws keep meow here.

Must look must look  
Mommy dear  
You took my eyelids mommy dear"

Gale didn’t look. How could he look, as his friend got his eyelids slowly cut from his head? He was a coward, a fucking coward, but anyone would have been. How crazy must Gale have been to envy Trey and Darin? How crazy must he have been to look forward to his death?

“Kill me” The captain whispered into the night. “please” He couldn’t blink, he couldn’t close his eyes. She was in his view, nibbling at a patch of skin that had once been his eyelid.

“HAHA WHY SHOULD AC DO MEW A FAVOR? Why should I do mew a favor? They didn’t let me die after all. No no, they kept me chained up, and they played with me all they wanted. They played with me all night long, right in front of my meowrail too. Mew don’t even have any idea what pain is.”

“But I am a merciful huntress, I will let mew see your death coming.” She balled her fists so that one claw poked out from each one. The captain saw one claw coming toward each of his eyes. He tried to close his eyes, but that’s kind of hard without eyelids. He tried to run away but she hissed and held his head straight with her knees. He tried to kick her with his feet but it was useless. She was too strong.

The captain saw a pair of claws puncture his eyes like a ripe tomato. Funny thing was he could still see almost. Shapes and colors mostly. He could see silver, the silver from her claws, and he saw the blood that was gushing from his eyes into the cold outside air as a shapeless red.

He felt the claws go deeper and puncture the back part of his eyeballs. To his surprise it really didn’t hurt. It was probably shock, but he actually found it somewhat hilarious that this was how he was going to die. His eyes popped like a pair of balloons. Balloons filled with blood.

He would have felt two metal claws stab through his brain like a giant slab of cheese. He would’ve felt it, if some god somewhere hadn’t taken mercy on him and delivered him sweet glorious darkness.

"A heart makes you feel loved,  
Mew are beautifurl, mew are worth falling for,  
A spade makes you feel alive,  
All mew flaws, and mew are still a worthy rival,  
A club makes you feel right,  
Help mend broken hearts, and put mew's back together,  
A diamond lets you feel whole,  
My better half is mew"

Gale was fighting a losing battle against the darkness. It wasn't his injuries that threatened him with uncosciousness. He was actually relatively unharmed. He wasn't even afraid, or rather his body had accostumed to the fear, become numb. No, it was the sheer exhaustion that drove his head into his hands and spurred the tears that fell from his cheeks.

"Why us?" He whispers. It was just so unfair. 

"Why not hate the clown who killed him? Why us?"

She's crying, and laughing. As heartbreaking as it is terrifying. She's no devil, arisen to prey on the souls of humans. She's a fallen angel, and all the more dangerous for once having been in the light. 

"Equius I found mew some food. Some plant food so you don't have to eat my animal food. Do mew feel well enough to go walking in the furrest later?"

"Nepeta run, he said. He didn't say it in his strong voice, he still didn't have his strong voice back, he was weak from Gamzee and they had beat him with sticks. Nepeta don't let them catch you. He had said" She was full on sobbing now, her voice barely discernible behind the waves of grief that rocked her. "I failed him. I ran."  
"I failed my meowrail. I FUCKED UP"

Gale subconsciously moves his hand over hers to comfort her but that's the wrong thing to do. She gashes his arm with her claws and pushes him back onto the ground. 

"Filthy depicable humans beat him!! Filthy autistic cat girl ran. She ran and ran and left her better half behind. Filthy cat girl deserves efurything they did to her. But not him, nefur him"

She traces a heart on Gale's cheek, hard enough to draw blood but he didn't flinch. He doesn't even breath until she lifts her hand and licks the glistening drops that drip from her claw. 

"A spade in heaven will tell you to get over it. They will tell mew to stop being so pathetically depressed and live your life. They will insult mew one more time to cheer you up and it will work.

A heart in heaven will have a picture of mew and carry it around. But hearts are plenty in heaven and though heart remembers he doesn't dwell. And many days go by without a thought of mew.

A diamond won't enter heaven. Diamond will wait at the door. After all half a troll can't enter heaven. And if mew go to hell then diamond will jump from the clouds gladly"

Her singing voice is sore, or perhaps that is simply Gale's ears that are sore. 

"AC left Equius to the humans and ran. But they caught her. And she learned just what happens to those who can't purrtect their meowrails."

"Mew remind me of someone. A troll I used to know"

Gale opens his eyes and grips her wrist ignoring the hiss of protest and the fresh set of scars on his arm. "Are you going to kill me?"

She hesitates "I won't. Equius wouldn't want me to."

Gale lets out a deep sigh of relief and relaxes into a calm sleep. A deep sleep devoid of dreams or restfulness.  
****  
Another police patrol finds Gale asleep in the morning. They don't wake him up. One of them picks him up and carries him back to town. They knock on his mothers door and she answers with a bowl of flour in her hand. They ask to talk to her and she breaks down into a wreck of a creature, torn asunder by the cruel world. The bowl of flour breaks on the floor and the flour spills out into the streets. Tears stain her face.

The tears of a mother who will have to bury her child.

"I won't kill mew" Nepeta had said.  
 _"But I will"_ AC had whispered.


	2. iLlUsIoN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> BASED OFF THIS VID: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNfPZALwEwo  
> Yea more killing and stuff... and Jade comes into the picture

In retrospect running into the woods might not have been that great an idea. Jade could hear the sound of crushing leaves and breaking branches behind her as they gained on her. They were wearing shoes and she was barefoot. They had protections from the thick underbrush, from the sharp vines, and the jagged bark that was making her legs look more red than pink. 

“You can't get away” She heard one of them shout. She jumped over a fallen log and stopped herself from crashing into a tree, her nose about an inch away from meeting a new friend. 

Her vision wobbled in front of her eyes, a kaleidoscope of colors masking what was real and what wasn't and Jade realized faintly that she was on the verge of passing out. It was to be expected of course, it would be pretty stupid to bite into her arm to rip out a machine designed to drug humans, one that she had worn the last 9 or so years, and run as fast as she could while being chased by men with guns and not expect bloodloss to at least play a factor in her tragic death. Killed in the middle of a forest by the people she had once belonged to. 

Dave would say it was ironic

Hot tears bubble down Jade's face burning her with their intensity. Except he wouldn't say that. He wouldn't say anything.

“I killed him remember?” Her voice is meant to be a shout, it comes as a hoarse whisper, her throat dry as sandpaper. 

“I killed him” She aches all over, the bruises and cuts all slitting her open to the cruel world outside, but its the inside that’s raw. Its the inside that broke into a million little pieces that could never ever be put back together into any semblance of normalcy. 

Her right arm is numb so she feels only a slight jolt when they haul her up by it. It was her right arm after all that she bit open to rip out the damn device. Back then it had been hate that had numbed the pain. She hated herself, she hated them, she hated fucking Dave Strider. Now she was too tired to hate anyone but herself. A blazing fire burned down to a single smoldering coal.

“Thought you could hide from us did you? DID YOU?”

“Kill me now” She asks in her mind because her cracked broken lips refuse to move and her hoarse raspy voice refuses to talk. “please kill me” Her thoughts are interrupted as his meaty fingers find their way around her throat and send weak signals of pain towards a brain that wants nothing more to with life. 

“So that I can go to hell as he goes to heaven”

Her vision fades along with her air and she goes limp in his choking grip

_“Jade I love you”_

*****

 

“Run, lit-tle, kit-tens  
Run, run, far away,  
Run, lit-tle kit-tens   
Befur I _make mew pay”_

“Nono no no no no no fuck please leave me alone I swear we werent chasing you no no no shit please I have a daughter at home thats really sick and needs money for her treatment and thats the only reason I took this job im sorry I swear I've never killed a troll before please dont kill me no please get away GO AWAY FUCK FUCK FUCK ARRRGGHHH YOU BIT ME ERIC HELP BRAD HELP SOMEBODY FUCKING HELP FUUUUUCCCCKKKK no, no, please imgoing to die, please let go now, please, please, im dying, please... pl-please”

She finally pulls out her fangs from his neck and thick red blood splatters onto the dirt. His body goes limp against a tree, still alive, still moaning, but the red staining his uniform and the red still gushing from his neck leaves no doubt as to his ultimate destination.   
“Whiney little kittens hehe, not gonna whine any more ARE MEW???”

*****

_oh my god oh my god Dave im so sorry, i,i, d-didn't mean to, well I..._

_That wasn't you Jade, it, it wasn't you_

_I know, but they were my bullets my gun oh Dave you're bleeding everywhere, what do i,what do I do? Im supposed to put pressure on the wound right? Like this? Like this?_

****

“FUCK YOU YOU TROLL BITCH GET OFF ME BEFORE I BLOW YOUR FUCKING BRAINS OUT!!!”

“Well thats not very nice, is it? Hehe not, very, nice, at, all” With each word she extended her claws just a little into the wrists she was holding against the ground, making him writhe in pain like a little bitty earthworm and aren't humans just _adorable_ when they're in pain?? Precious little things... precious and fragile.

“Somebody should teach mew some manners!!” 

“FUCK YOU!! ARRRGGHHH GET OFF ME”

“But which one??” She says putting on an expression of mock confusion which was sort of ruined by the blood dripping down her chin. “Fuck you or get off you??”

“GET OFF ME, WE WEREN'T EVEN AFTER YOU YOU GODDAMN PSYCHO!!”

“What was that? Fuck you? I can mewrly oblige to that,” and she brings her left foot up from where it was pinning down down his leg, not before leaving a small cut as warning to keep his leg still and uses it to forcefully kneed his groin drawing a guttural groan of pain from him. 

“YOU-- YOU'RE FUCKING CRAZY”

“Tell mew something I don't know” She says with a wicked grin in her eyes and soon she has him at full mast, and she let go of his left wrist but he doesn't even notice because its bleeding and its numb and she carefully picks up the knife that fell from his belt when she tackled him. She puts the blade up against her palm and gives a small purr of approval when it takes no effort at all to draw out a glistening drop of Olive green. 

She had no way of knowing that that knife was the only thing he had to remind him of his father, who died in the war. That it was his 18th birthday gift and the last gift he had ever gotten from him. That he kept it with him and made sure to polish it every night and make sure it was always sharpened. If she had known that would have made her all the more happy for what was to come next. 

“What do humans do with wood again Equitty?” She moves her feet back down to pin down his leg again, and the soldier groans as its her hand's turn to grip the shaft through the fabric of his pants and jerk him up and down. 

“Oh right” She says with a giggle, half genuine happiness and half pure bloodfed madness.

“They cut it down!” And her crazy batshit laugh almost drowns out his cry of pain as the knife swings through the air and slices through it like butter, chopping it down in a sea of blood and the soldier stops thinking anything except please make the stop make it stop make it stop make it fucking stop because she slashed him on each damn wrist, and he hit his head when she tackled him but not hard enough because he can still feel the burning hell in his groin and he can still hear her laughter, her crazy demoness laughter, and he can see her when she lifts up his fathers knife, his knife, and licks it clean, savoring every drop. 

“What sign are mew? He can't hear her over his moans of pain, over the ringing in his airs, and it takes a swipe across his cheek and a new set of _wondefurl purrty scars_ to draw his attention again. 

“WHAT SIGN ARE MEW?

How does he talk again? He has to or else she'll cut him again and the pain, must take away the pain draw lovelylovelylovely flowers to take away the pain and the prison and the sun, blot it all out and have to stay awake, I have to die, have to stay awake, _have to die._ Hears his voice, but doesn't feel his lips move because everything is _numbnumbnumb,_ except the pain, make the pain _numbnumb_ why won't the pain go away?

“sc-scor, scor-pio”

_“Scorpio???_ Well mister _Scorpio,_ does the silly little human want to see AC's sign?” 

She doesn't wait for him to respond. “First its a curly line starting all the way up here” She dug a single claw into his shoulder and he jerked like a pinned fish only succeeding in pushing the claw in deeper. 

“Then it goes like this” She dug the claw in jerky jagged movements across his chest stopping right on top of his spine, leaning in to lick up the gushing blood with the ravishing hunger of a bloodstarved vampire. 

“Then it curves downward” He was numb now close to eternal sleep and only low moans escaped his mouth as she gutted him open. She pushed the claw in too deep and her claw scratched his rib making a _delicious beautifurl_ shout break the monotony of his moans.

“And then a circle...” So quietly he doesn't hear. He does feel it though when her claws rip into his stomach, tear the skin and the muscle, and the veins mixing up a slurry of blood, stomach acid, and crushed bones. He feels it when her fist grabs his liver and rips it from his body, a squishy squelch popping as its freed from its home. 

A wet slap as she throws his liver at his face and with his fading senses he hears her say “Bye little Kitty” 

*****

_Shut up you stupid cocky idiot!! Don't you dare give up on me, don't you dare die on me Strider! You're coughing up blood oh Dave im so sorry just please don't die on me, please Dave please..._

_Jade its okay, its okay_

_No no no I will NOT let you die, not here not by my hand! But, it was my gun damn it, just listen for a second, I know you dont want me to, but I blame myself, and I... Oh god its really bad, please Dave I c-can't lose you like this please stay with me, please..._

_Jade?_

_Yes?_

_“Just hold me Jade, okay?”_

_Okay im sorry, I, I, d-dave, dave, d-dave open your eyes, dave wake up,d-dave please wake up,,, dave?_  
*****

 

The third human, Eric, was running as fast as he could away not even caring about the branches that were cutting his face or the fact that he had left his gun behind and the only protection he had was a switchblade in his belt or the fact that his two friends were back there and he could hear their cries and one of them called for him it sounded like Joe maybe he should have helped him NO shut up there was nothing he could do just shut up and keep running, he has four kids he has to take care of and a beautiful wife and no fucking troll is going to stop him from getting out. 

Just when he's about to admit that he's completely lost he barrels through a thick barrier of pine needles and falls out into the open grass. Never had he been so happy to see the small farming village of Dainsworth, with its little makeshift wall and its dirt roads, and the little shack next to the pub where his wife and children were making dinner waiting for him to come back home. 

He wouldn't have turned back towards the forest. He would have kept on walking home and then given each of his children a hug, first Ashley because she was always the first one to come to the door, then Lisa trailing after Ashley, then Elsa, and finally Ricky who would drag himself away from his fake wooden sword practice to come see what all the noise was. Then he would've kissed his wife and hopefully quit his job at Betty Crocker Corp to expand the family farm. Eventually Ricky would've taken over the business and he would've taught Ricky which plants to farm when and how to deal with bugs and the easiest way to chop down trees and Eric would've died a not really wise but happy old man. 

Instead he hears a muffled thump behind him and turns slowly, already knowing what he's going to see.

“Hello Kitty” 

Bathed in blood, caked in gore, the sight of her freezes him down to his very core and its with no small amount of effort that he stammers out supplications and pleas. All futile of course but he deserves props for trying. 

“Please whoever you are look my house is right over there, the one with the weathervane on top, and I have four kids, three girls and one boy, and I have a wife, and without me they would probably starve, and we weren't even chasing after you we were chasing after the runaway girl, just let me go I won't tell anyone what happened you can go back to hiding out in the forest, and look I've never actually killed a troll, I'm new at Betty Crocker this is my first month there and I think its despicable what they do to trolls really it is so if you let me go then I'll quit, and I'll do something else, just please, my family's right over there, I want to see them I need to see them.” He breaks down into sobs and incoherent mumbling, the tangled remains of his sanity burning burning burning in a glorious hell and the fire came from the her, from the demon witch, her wings burned away long ago along with everything except the deepest darkest hate. 

She's looking at him but not at him. Its hard to see her eyes clearly because of all the caked blood and scars on her face but they seem to be glazed as if she was leaving in a dream of her own... or a nightmare. She starts muttering, the quite voice of someone who has spent far too long talking to ghosts.

“Stop hurting him he hasn't done anything, ill tell you anything, everything I know I promise, he doesn't know and even if he did he can't say anything if you gag him just please don't hurt him any more hurt me please, come on listen to me im right here, do anything to me, please, please I know you can understand me, he's my moirail, please don't hurt him, please don't hurt him, pl-please don't hurt Equitty...”

Her hands close around his neck and he gasps one tiny breath of air before his throat closes off.

“stop choking him your killing him he doesn't know anything, he nefur hurt anyone, stop choking him PLEASE stop choking him please, n-o no n-o EQUIUS IM GOING TO KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU, equius look at me, EQUIUS look at me, its going to be okay equitty, its going to be okay just look at me, look at your meowrail ill keep you safe. They're gone the humans are gone, equitty please stop crying, pl-please st-stop cr-ying equius, just talk to me, just talk to me...”

His limp body crashes to the floor and Nepeta leaves him there, her bloodthirst sated for tonight. 

“Close your eyes my dearest love,  
I'll stay here by mew side,  
When nightbeasts fly and when you cry,  
I'll stay here by mew side,

H-how did the ending go Equius? You would sing it to me wh-when, when the nightbeasts came, b-but I would always fall asleep befur the end... H-how did the ending go?”

*****  
 _I love you Jade,_

_I-, I love you too,_

*****

“A little girl, lost in the woods... what should I do with her Equitty?”

“Look Equitty she has ears!!!!” Nepeta played roughly with the two white puppy ears that came out from Jade's head. They had been hidden from sight with a black hairband before, but the hairband snapped in two sometime during the chase and now lay at her feet. 

“Puppy ears Equitty isn't that pawsitively PURRECIOUS?”

Jade was unconscious, dull red chokemarks still visible on her neck. Her uniform was ripped and shredded from her flight through the woods, and her long black hair was tangled and dirty. Her rifle was still strapped to her back, unused ever since it had shot her best friend. Her shoulder was caked in yellow pus, probably infected, definitely a cause for death if left untreated. 

She was still alive though which left Nepeta with a dilemma. 

“See Equius, the thing is if I kill her now then she won't even feel it. She'll nefur know why she had to die... It's not fair Equius, she has to know, just like all the other _humans”_

Nepeta slung the girl unceremoniously over one shoulder and started the trek back to her cave, not caring about the fresh welts Jade's head received when it bumped “accidentally” against a trunk or the fact that holding her upside down tore through the scab on her shoulder and flushed out a swill of pus and fresh blood to color their trail. 

Not much point in taking care of a girl who you're planning to kill is there?


	3. CaPtiViTY

“Haha mew killed Davey mew killed Davey  
Davey go bye bye, he _dead!_ ”

“SHUT UP” Jade launches herself at the troll clawing every inch of skin she can reach because she's wrongwrongwrong she has to be... she has to be. She bites into the thick troll skin, much thicker than any human, she kicks and jabs and claws and _hates_ this goddamn troll that dares speak his name, as if she had any idea what Jade had lost...

“Silly kitten” She says with the contempt of a human squishing a hapless mosquito. “Don't go attacking things you aren't able to kill” Faster than her eye can even track, Jade feels claws tear through her skin like butter as she's sent flying through the air, crashing with a heavy thud on the floor. 

A heavy matted paw comes down on her chest, choking out the weak breaths that Jade's fatigued lungs struggle to draw, and her brain sends sharp signals of panic as spots swim in front of her vision, distant memories of stars growing bigger and bigger as they fell crashing all around her. 

“Im mew one chance fur revenge kitten, remember that”

_72 hours in the past_

“Hello? Is anyone there?” 

It was pitch black, and when Jade opened her eyes she thought that she must still somehow have her eyelids closed because the _drowning choking_ darkness is everywhere and no place on earth could ever, should ever be this dark. 

Only the sharp pain swelling from her head, only the cold frigid air like a tomb convinced her that this wasn't any one of her nightmares. Real life always hurts more than an nightmares, the difference between black and white and color... if color made you wish for a pillow to smother yourself back into unconsiousness. 

“He-hello? I'm scared and I can't see anything is anyone there?”

_66 hours in the past_

Jade found the exit, or at least what feels like an exit, deep groves ripping through an otherwise smooth expanse of shale and stone. Its blocked though. Figures. The walls are cold stone, just like the floor, and Jade shivers as her tattered clothing utterly fail to protect her from the cold lifeless air. She also found a single canteen of water, its droplets a symphony of music to her raspy and parched tongue. 

_62 hours in the past_

The voice started singing, always the same melody, over and over again without pause without rest without pause without rest, and Jade can't help but feel sorry for the mystery girl because she sounds so broken.

Close your eyes my deepest love  
I'll stay here by mew side  
When nightbeasts fly and when you cry  
Ill stay here by my side

Wh-when...when I'm alone and mew is dead,  
wh-when all my life and love is bled,  
when I cry and scream and shout,  
when I kill and bleed it out,  
when you're not there, t-to help me through,  
I'll stay here by mew side 

She stops. Jade can hear her sobbing desperately and gasping for air before continuing

Close your eyes my deepest love,  
I'll be with mew soon,  
Close your eyes my dearest one,  
We've nothing left to lose,  
Just a little more to wait,  
Just some prey to hunt and chase,  
Then I'll close my eyes Darling,  
And be there by your side.

Close your eyes my deepest love  
I'll stay here by mew side  
When nightbeasts fly...

_56 hours in the past_

The voice finally stopped singing that song, and yet no matter how much Jade screams to get her attention, her throat dry as sandpaper with the effort, she never makes any indication that she can hear Jade or even knows that she's there, trapped in a prison of darkness. 

_40 hours in the past_

“Da-dave dave, d-dave im sorry” Jade wakes up to the sound of his choked name on her lips, tears running freely down her cheeks as her tortured dreams take her yet again to the worst day of her life. The jagged stone on her back is actually a relief, waking her up out of her fevered delusions and her wretched memories with the sharp pain of a knife along her wrist, _across her neck._

_36 hours in the past_

Can mew hear the voices,  
The purrty lies, the ugly truth?

ALL I WANTED WAS MEW,  
a-all I wanted was you  
a-all i e-efur wanted

all I efur wanted equius...

I HATE YOU

A single tearridden shout breaks Jade out of her thoughts before washing the room yet again in silence. 

_30 hours in the past_

Hunger is starting to rip into Jade, tearing her into disjointed shreds of sharp pain and eery numbness. She tips over the canteen she carried on her belt and spills out the last few precious drops of water on her scratchy tongue. She needs food, she needs food above everything else because the wretched desire is surely going to rip her in half if it isn't sated.

She's dying...

_1 hour in the past_

“So who's Davekitty?” The light blinds Jade, playing cruel tricks on her eyes as she closes her eyelids shut and its still too bright even with her eyes shut because hours beyond count beyond trace is far too long a time to be in complete darkness. Everything looked like a mass of waterpaints, smeared by a twoyearold using his hands to draw, and Jade was really glad to be sitting down because the sudden nausea she felt at the influx of sensory overload made her feel like she was going to throw up or maybe just curl up and die or something. 

“Who?” The choked tear in her throat, the upward lilt her voice catches before fading into the suddenly infinitesimally loud surroundings and her lie is plain as the sun, as plain as the sky on a blue clear day. 

_“Dont lie to me”_ The hiss is followed by a thud and Jade looks up wearily to see a bloody chunk of what looks like venison hit the floor, spraying droplets of blood on the stone. Right now Jade couldn't care less whether it really was venison, it could've been rat and her desire to rip into it would not have lessened. The only reason her mouth wasn't salivating was because her throat was dry from the tears and screams that had buffeted her in her sleep. 

“Tell me and you get to eat”

It never occurred to Jade to lie, or to stay silent. Right now the aching pain in her stomach was ruling her and it was without reserve that she started talking. 

“He is... w-was my best friend, and the love of my life”

Her words come out raspy and the cat troll tosses a half-empty flagon of water at her feet(once upon a time Jade might have said it was half-full). Jade almost gags as the beautiful precious wonderful water smolders the fire burning in her throat leaving only a dry pile of ashes.

“We met when we were 7 years old, he lived across the street with his bro...”

_“Thats a pretty wicked dog ya got there”_  
 _“Wh-who are you?”_  
 _“Oh just the coolest guy you'll ever meet but you can call me Dave if ya want”_

I told him once that I wished I could live in the clouds, far away from everyone. He found the tallest tree in the forest and spent weeks with his bro building a tree house to give to me on my eighth birthday.

_“Its not quite as high as the clouds but I hope you like it”_

We used it as a fort, our little fort where we could listen to music and just hang out. The kids made fun of me, because of my buckteeth and because I lived alone with my grandpa, and they made fun of him because he never took off his shades and because he wasn't exactly normal for a third grader. 

_“I can make them stop you know... bro taught me to fight, I could make them be your friends...”_  
 _“That's okay Dave. I don't need them... I have you”_

He was obsessed with coolness, with doing everything ironically, with hiding any sort of weakness, any sort of emotion. It pissed me off!! One time during christmas he wrote “Merry Christmas Jade” in huge christmas lights, strung on the front of my house while I slept. He hung a mixtape of love songs by a string outside my window. I was ready to kiss him then and there, the stupid idiot. But when I asked him why he did it he said it was just to be ironic, that it was the ironic thing to do. When I tried to tell him that I loved the mixtape he told me that all the songs on there were pieces of trash and that you had to listen to them ironically if you really wanted to appreciate it whatsoever. Dumbass.

The cat troll used her claws to rip off a piece of the meat, so juicy it literally dripped blood and threw so that it slapped Jade in the face. In another world Jade would have cared, would have been indignant at this troll treating her like a dog. In another world Jade wouldn't have been starving to death, wouldn't have picked up the meat and bit into it with the savagery of hyenas tearing into their prey. 

Dave loved to go where he wasn't supposed to. We would go into the theater when it was closed and pretend to be actors, or to the roof of our building during lunch and have a picnic, or to neighbors backyards to use their pool while they were away. One time we got caught using a neighbors hot tub, well lets just say we wouldn't have picked his house if we knew he was a 7 foot football player with anger management problems. 

That was the first time I saw his eyes without his shades on. They had fallen off while we were running away. He was freaking out about it so I went and got him a new pair the next day. 

We were 12 when I first kissed him. We were on the rooftop looking at the stars talking about random shit. He was DEFINITELY not expecting it, like he literally fell off the roof afterwards from the surprise, I cracked up laughing when I saw him covered in smushed flowers.  
 __  
“Hey Dave?”  
“Yea”  
“I- I love you”  
“... Yea you're pretty cool too Jade”  
“... wow really?”  
“What?”  
“Ughh nothing I'm going home I'll see you tommorow or whatever”

_“Hey Jade?”_  
“Yea fuckass?”  
“I love you too” 

We argued a lot. About music, about school, about him taking too many risks, about who got the last carton of pudding from the fridge. But mostly we argued over trolls and Betty Crocker. 

I was completely anti-troll. Trolls had killed my parents when I was just a baby, trolls had killed millions of parents just like them, it was all over the news, the trolls wouldn't stop until every human was either dead or a slave. I wanted to join the Freedom Army, help protect families from trolls. 

Dave wasn't though. He was the only person I've ever met who said that trolls could be anything but vicious savages. 

_“The Freedom Army Jade are you fucking kidding me?”_  
“Trolls are the enemy Dave we need to wipe them out before they wipe us out”  
“Jade trolls are NOT the enemy!! Her Imperial Condescension is the enemy sure, she's batshit crazy and probably needs to be put down, same with The Grand Highblood, but NOT the innocent trol-”  
“There is no such thing as an innocent troll Dave, NO such thing. All they ever do is fight and kill and steal its in their blood”  
“You've been watching CNN haven't you Jade? I keep telling you that news station spouts more bullshit than a 50 ton elephant with diarrhea who just ate a shit ton of prunes, you can't trust anything they say!!”  
“Oh and I guess the trolls who killed my parents JUST HAPPENED to be the bad trolls and that troll last week who blew up HALF OF CHICAGO WITH HIS FUCKING MIND is the bad troll and all the other trolls just want to move in and become good responsible citizens is that what you're telling me???”  
“The Freedom Army MURDERS innocent families, they MURDER children Jade how can you not see th-”  
“Troll children Dave, troll children don't even deserve to be called children”  
“Jade they're fucking brainwashing you, how can you not see that the real enemy is Betty Crocker here?”  
“Betty Crocker is trying to protect us!! Protect humans! Which is more than I can say for our so called government”  
“Betty Crocker didn't start the Freedom Army to save humanity, they started the Freedom Army to become powerful, more powerful than any government on earth. They're not interested in protecting and saving, they're interested in chaos because that's where they can make the most money, why can't you fucking see??”  
“What I can see Dave?! What I can see is humans dying by the thousands, by the millions, because trolls have a culture where bloodshed is power and conquest is a way of life. Trolls are never going to change, they are never going to learn how to live peacefully”  
“What about the NAA Jade? The Alternian Peace Corps? The Troll Liberation Front? The Sufferers Disciples? All these groups that are fighting for peace, against the Hemocaste, against war, against her Imperial Condescension. You never see them in the news because heaven forbid Betty Crocker not be the hero in our fight against evil but they're there and all they want is peace”  
“You can't seriously believe that Dave! That's bullshit made up by the trolls to lure us into false complacency, to build up sympathy towards those murderers. There is no such thing as a troll revolutionaire”  
“Then how come I know a couple?”  
“... Dave what have you done?”  
“I've been talking to a couple of trolls who are part of the Human-Troll Equality Front. They're doing some good things and I want to help.”  
“Dave that's illegal you dumbass!!! They can put you in jail for that!!”  
“Who can put me in jail Jade? Betty Crocker! Betty Crocker can put anyone in jail for being seen with a troll, for talking with a troll, for “supposedly” being a troll sympathizer. They can put someone in jail for eating a sandwich in a way that could possibly be a secret signal for troll refugees god knows how thats possible but they've probably done it before. Whats wrong with that picture? Where a single company has basically unlimited power. Im joining the HTEF, that's the only way this mess will ever sort itself out”  
“I could stop you Dave, I could tell somebody...”  
“Would you?” 

_“Would you Jade?”_

A couple months later his house got attacked by a team of psionics. The whole house, demolished in a matter of seconds and I just watched from my house as red and blue lights burned everything down.

Everything crumpling into ashes and dust. 

They found Bro's body, horrible and disfigured to the point where it could be confused for some type of animal but they found it and buried it alone, because his only known family had been burnt to ashes, far beyond the reach of any human left on earth.

I left home that night, took a bus to the city, to the Freedom Army recruitment center. Bunch of wannabe soldiers, I was the only one of the new recruits who actually knew how to shoot a gun. I could aim better than my commander and when I took down a rouge purple blood with 3 straight headshots(because apparently even a clean headshot can't take down those beasts) they promoted me to a Specialist Sniper. 

I was the one they called when they had out of control highbloods. Seadwellers too, they were too fast and strong for our regular soldiers to take out. I even got the occasional psionic though they were usually reserved for the psionic division of the Freedom Army. 

They kept testing me, pushing to see how far I would go before I pulled back. First they would test me by telling me to kill women and baby trolls. It wasn't even a challenge I shot their brains full of lead 

Then they sent me after humans... traitors they said, people who had sold us out to the trolls and they would tell me to bring them in so that they could face justice. I did it without complaint. These people deserved to be locked up. 

They promoted me, to corporal, gave me more medals than I could handle. I didn't care, I was in it for revenge, not glory.

Then it wasn't even bringing in the traitors for justice, it was a single motion of the finger and their traitor guts would spill out all over the floor.

I did everything they told me to do... everything. Until Lisa.

I don't know who Lisa was, I don't know what she did, who she pissed off. They no longer told me the reason when they told me to kill someone. All I know was that she was singing to her baby when I had her in my scope, from the opposite building, singing a lullaby and rocking her baby to sleep. And I just couldn't do it... I couldn't 

That's when they started to drug me, a compound derived from experiments on captive blue bloods, to limit the free will in the mind of humans. They called it the blue blood serum. At first it didn't work, all it did was cause me _painful painful shut up fuck shut up_ pain. But they fixed it, they stuck it in my arm. I don't remember anything from the next two years... just flashes, glimpses, sounds, 

Until Dave came. 

He knew I was being drugged, somehow, somehow he knew where I was. Somehow he was alive...

He jabbed a liquid into my arm, it was designed to counteract the blue blood serum, nullify it. 

It didn't work. It didn't didn't didn't work, i- i- 

Jade leaned over gasping, her hands on her knees, tears falling freely from her eyes and onto the ground. Her chest felt tight and her heart was fluttering, she was on the verge of an anxiety attack. She focused on the ground, trying to calm down but it seemed impossible, she wanted to scream and cry and punch a wall all at the same time. 

“My c-commander gave the order to shoot. I had orders”

“Mew killed Davekitty”

 _Nonononono it cant be it cant be shut up fuck shut up._ The darkness in Jade's soul sprouts roots growing _higher higher higher_ choking her one fucked up tear at a time, petals feed her lovely lovely little thoughts _shut up_ lovely little thoughts about how she killed her best friend isn't it fucking amazing?

There's a broken girl beyond the help of tears, beyond the help of anybody and her name is Jade Harley.

“Haha mew killed Davey mew killed Davey  
Davey go bye bye, he _dead!_ ”

“SHUT UP”  
*****

_“Im mew one chance fur revenge kitten, remember that”_

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!!!  
> Tell me what you think,  
> Love y'all <3


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